Those of you who read this site regularly know that I'm a New Englander transplanted to Toronto. Well, yesterday, it finally happened. Our illustrious Mayor finally came out and admited that the video of him smoking crack (while he was in office, no less, though not actually while physcially in his office but rather while he was taking a break from his mayoral duties to visit a local crack house) is indeed real:

Here's what he said in a press conference yesterday:

"Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine," Ford said.

"But, no — do I? Am I an addict? No. Have I tried it? Um, probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago."

Okay . . . I'm wondering how this helps him. It's bad enough he smokes crack while in office, but now he admits to doing it in "one of my drunken stupors." Not "in adrunken stupor," mind you, but in one ofhis drunken stupors. This begs two questions: exactly how often is our mayor going about in a drunken stupor? Once a week, twice a week, every day after noon (and it's always after noon somewhere, isn't it)? And if he's going about in drunken stupors with even a fair bit of regulatity, what else has he done while in them? Of course there's a dark (and not very funny) side to this story, since the two drug dealers he was filmed smoking with have both been shot since the story originally broke, and one of them killed. This does raise the rather uncomforting possibility that the mayor had one of his "friends" (many of whom it is turning out are convicted criminals) try to retrieve that video a bit too aggressively. In fact, his "driver" is now being charged with extortion apparently for his attempts to get hold of the video before the police or press got hold of it. This driver has already been convicted of wife beating and a few other unpleasantries, but Mayor Ford still found it apt to write a glowing character reference for him.

To cap it all off, after his notorious press conference, he said this:

[I am] "ashamed" [but feel like] "1,000 pounds have been lifted off my shoulders." It's hard to tell whether this is a truthful statement, as anyone who has seen pictures of Mayor Ford and his more than ample girth knows that 1,000 pounds plus or minus wouldn't make all that much difference in his appearance.

Anyway, this does have something to do with football after all, as this video from a year ago shows. I think it was filmed just before Ford was forced to give up his coaching duties at a local high school for having used city resources to do fundraising for the school team. Anyway, for those who think Brady's footwork has been poor, please watch this:

He'll be missed just for the laughs. What saves us here in Toronto is the next election is scheduled for a year from now and apparently there's no way to impeach the mayor or kick him out of office short of getting him convicted of a crime and jailed. No charges are being pressed, because there's no way to prove that pipe he was smoking really held crack. If fact, he's already created some doubt based on this statement he made this summer:

Taking questions from reporters after a campaign-style lunchtime address on Wednesday, Toronto’s controversial mayor was asked if he had used pot. “Oh yeah,” he said, chuckling. “I won’t deny that. I smoked a lot of it.”

He'll be missed just for the laughs. What saves us here in Toronto is the next election is scheduled for a year from now and apparently there's no way to impeach the mayor or kick him out of office short of getting him convicted of a crime and jailed. No charges are being pressed, because there's no way to prove that pipe he was smoking really held crack. If fact, he's already created some doubt based on this statement he made this summer:

Taking questions from reporters after a campaign-style lunchtime address on Wednesday, Toronto’s controversial mayor was asked if he had used pot. “Oh yeah,” he said, chuckling. “I won’t deny that. I smoked a lot of it.”

I love this guy. And I'm a liberal!

You know if we could just get our politicians to not do anything but be comical I think we would all be better off.

He'll be missed just for the laughs. What saves us here in Toronto is the next election is scheduled for a year from now and apparently there's no way to impeach the mayor or kick him out of office short of getting him convicted of a crime and jailed. No charges are being pressed, because there's no way to prove that pipe he was smoking really held crack. If fact, he's already created some doubt based on this statement he made this summer:

Taking questions from reporters after a campaign-style lunchtime address on Wednesday, Toronto’s controversial mayor was asked if he had used pot. “Oh yeah,” he said, chuckling. “I won’t deny that. I smoked a lot of it.”

I love this guy. And I'm a liberal!

You know if we could just get our politicians to not do anything but be comical I think we would all be better off.

His approval rating actually went up after the police announced they had the crack video in their possession. Maybe Torontonians, like Bostonians, have had their epiphany and they'll keep him around for decades, just for laughs.

As the Toronto story unfolded I wondered how long it would be before he actually came clean and what his rationalization would be. He didn't disappoint.

Mayor Menino is a national treasure. I've never in my life seen a politician with such a cavalier disregard for the actual pronunciation of people's names yet been so apparently unaware of the range of his mispronunciation.

Rob Ford makes NFL.com. Not off topic after all.What the What? Part II

That's Rob Ford, perhaps better known to the world as Toronto Crack Mayor. On the morning of the most important press conference of his life -- one in which he would admit to using crude illegal narcotics while in office -- Ford thumbed through his neckwear collection in his closet before settling on his NFL novelty tie from 1995.

I could live for 100 more years and not find a more baffling circumstance. You did it, Rob Ford.